Other Physical Devices of Self-reflection

2.1.2 Other Physical Devices of Self-reflection

In both Fowles and Pamuk’s novels paintings, drawings, pictures-art in general-function as a reflection of reality. In FLW, there are paintings, drawings, artists, and poets. Sarah, at the end of the novel, is seen as the assistant to Dante Gabriel Rossetti and lives in his house, which “seems[s] more an art gallery” (FLW, 421). The house looks like an artist’s studio:

On a table near the door lay a litter of drawings; on an easel a barely begun oil, the mere groundlines, a hint of a young woman looking sadly down, foliage sketched faint behind her head; other turned canvases by the wall; by another wall, a row of hooks, from which hung a multi-coloured array of female dresses, scarves, shawls; a large pottery jar; tables of impedimenta - tubes, brushes, colour-pots ... small sculptures, an urn with bulrushes (FLW, 425).

Rossetti himself is also a poet and lives with his brother (an art critic), and his sister “the poetess Miss Christina Rossetti” (FLW, 426, 435). Sarah can also be considered as an actress and an artistically creative character in her fictionalized life story she tells everybody about Varguennes and herself. As Cooper reveals, “Sarah does in some ways function as the magus-figure” (Cooper 1991: 111) manipulating Charles to play the part that she chooses in the text she creates.

In M, on the other hand, Nicholas, in Pamela Cooper’s words Charles’s “double,” (1991: 110-111) in the role of interpreter, writes poems (M, 57) as well as reads them. Someone leaves “one of the commonest paperback anthologies of modern English verse” (M, 68-9) on the beach for him to find. Conchis, on the other hand, is the artist figure in M. Nicholas is surprised to see Conchis’s collection of art in his house including “books lined three walls,…a life-size reproduction of a Modigliani, a fine portrait of a somber woman in black against a glaucus background (M, 92), “the bronze of a young man,” “a maquette by Rodin,” “the other characteristically skeletal bronze” by Giacometti (M, 93), “two paintings: both nudes, girls in sunlit interiors”(M, 97). Conchis continually organizes games for Nicholas. He tells Nicholas to read a pamphlet by Robert Foulkes. Having read it, Nicholas

finds himself in the world of Foulkes when he sees a man costumed in the 17 th century style staring at him from across a ravine (M, 140-1). Conchis arranges theatre

acts for Nicholas. Lily of the story Conchis tells becomes real followed by the play of harpsichord. A young girl dressed in Edwardian clothes accompanying Conchis as Lily (M, 155) starts speaking as “in a drawing room” of 1900s (M, 169). Nicholas, while trying to give meaning to this girl pretending to belong to the Edwardian period, with the blow of the horn and the beam of light as in the theatre, finds himself being presented with another play within the play in which Apollo, an absolutely naked man, Lily’s brother as she tells, a naked girl and another man, a satyr with a woman in long saffron chiton, and a goddess appear (M, 180-4). On the way back to school Nicholas is stopped by a group of soldiers in Nazi uniforms (M, 372, 378-

382), which was also one of the games Conchis arranges for Nicholas. June and Julie, as Conchis tells, are twin sisters and are actresses, whom he hired for a theatrical experiment (M, 224-229). They all are the part of the godgame Conchis organizes for Nicholas on the way to reach maturity. The typescript of a story left for Nicholas by Conchis about a prince who learns to be a magician by accepting that there are metaphorical meanings in life, and that he should learn to differentiate between the reality and illusion can also be considered as a part of Conchis’s godgame reflecting the distinctness between reality and fiction (M, 550).

In DM, Daniel is a script - writer 45 who has once been a successful playwright but later entered the film world. Daniel’s new goal in life is writing a novel. His girl

friend Jenny is an actress, but also becomes an author while contributing to Daniel’s novel. She makes three contributions towards Daniel’s novel – “An Unbiased View” (DM, 37-50), “A Second Contribution” (DM, 261-267), and “A Third Contribution” (DM, 480-495). On the whole, DM itself is the novel Daniel plans to write as a means to put an end to his inner strife in achieving a wholeness inside. Fowles’s use of “the famous late Rembrandt self-portrait” (DM, 702) at the end of the novel to teach Daniel “the ultimate citadel of humanism. No true compassion without will, no true will without compassion” and that he has to continue to choose and learn to feel and consequently write his novel and reach a unified self at the end, is also related with this issue of the distinctness of the reality and the fiction (DM, 703).

In Pamuk’s novels, especially in BB, and also in MNR, mirror and painting or original and copy have different effects on the spectators and this discrepancy between original and copy, reminding one of the relationship between the text and the reader, surprises but at the same time disappoints them.

45 In The Collector, both Frederick Clegg and Miranda Grey keep diaries. Clegg collects butterflies. He is obsessed with Miranda and wants to possess her as he does the butterflies. The first and third

sections are Clegg’s diary, while the second section is Miranda’s. In The Ebony Tower, on the other hand, David Williams is an art critic and a painter like William Breasley. Two young art students, Diana and Anne live in William’s house as well. Therefore, Fowles uses art within his novels to stress the blurring between the world of fiction and reality.

In BB, the reflection of a reflection is best illustrated in “Mysterious Paintings.” The famous Beyo÷lu master, owner of a pleasure palace, decides to have “scenes of østanbul painted on the walls of his establishment’s spacious lobby” (BB, 375/345). Since academic painters turn his proposal down, the mobster hires two artisans who both claim to be the better craftsman. A contest has been organized for the “Best Painting of østanbul” “offering the two ambitious contestants opposite walls in the lobby of his pleasure palace” (BB, 376/346).

The artist who had installed the mirror wins the prize: the guests beheld a splendid view of østanbul on one wall and on

the wall directly opposite it a mirror that made the painting, in the light of the silver candelabras, appear even finer, more brilliant, and more attractive than the original (BB, 376/346).

The difference between the painting and its reflection on the mirror gives different delights to the customers. However, this is only a trick of the mirror, since “the fountain was in fact dry” (BB, 376/347). The women who work in the palace use the difference between paintings and their reflections as a way of making personality analyses for their clients. The police chief, who pays frequent visits to the brothel, “came face to face in the mirror with a shady looking baldheaded fellow who was depicted toting a gun in a dark alley” (BB, 377/347). That is when the police chief realizes that this was the infamous “ùiúli Square Murder” and the artist of this painting should know the mystery of the murder. On another occasion, the son of a lord baron [sic] sees in the mirror the image of “a good homemaker who wove rugs in her home in the slums” and realizes that he is mistaken about the love of his life. “Yet when he turned to the painting, he was only “confronted by one of those sad colorless girls who inhabit his father’s villages” (BB, 377/348). The mirror on the wall that reflects the painting in fact disappoints the police chief when he learns that “the colossal mirror had come down on the rowdies and broken into smithereens,” The difference between the painting and its reflection on the mirror gives different delights to the customers. However, this is only a trick of the mirror, since “the fountain was in fact dry” (BB, 376/347). The women who work in the palace use the difference between paintings and their reflections as a way of making personality analyses for their clients. The police chief, who pays frequent visits to the brothel, “came face to face in the mirror with a shady looking baldheaded fellow who was depicted toting a gun in a dark alley” (BB, 377/347). That is when the police chief realizes that this was the infamous “ùiúli Square Murder” and the artist of this painting should know the mystery of the murder. On another occasion, the son of a lord baron [sic] sees in the mirror the image of “a good homemaker who wove rugs in her home in the slums” and realizes that he is mistaken about the love of his life. “Yet when he turned to the painting, he was only “confronted by one of those sad colorless girls who inhabit his father’s villages” (BB, 377/348). The mirror on the wall that reflects the painting in fact disappoints the police chief when he learns that “the colossal mirror had come down on the rowdies and broken into smithereens,”

he draws (MNR, 325/283). For Pamuk, as in the case of BB itself, the boundary between fact/original object and fiction/its reflection is not clear: A black book the artist had prankishly stuck into the hand of a

blind beggar turned into a two-part book in the mirror, a book with two meanings and two stories; yet, looking at the painting, one realized the book was of uniform consistency and that its mystery was lost in itself (BB, 378/348).

It is true that BB is a two-part book made up of both Jelal’s columns and Galip’s texts reflecting each other endlessly. When the contrastive relation between mirror and painting is remembered, the same problematic can be observed in the Galip and Jelal relationship. Jelal is the writer and Galip discovers his true self when he becomes someone else - Jelal. Therefore, Galip is a copy/an imitation of Jelal. However, the reality of Jelal is debatable also. He never appears in the book except at the death scene at the end. He exists only in his columns, which are never explicitly attributed to him. In Galip’s case, Jelal is not a stranger. Galip knows him as a person as well as a writer in his texts. If Galip finds his identity when he becomes Jelal, this does not mean that he is an imitation of Jelal, but instead he explores the potential writer in himself and solves his identity problem by becoming a synthesis of Galip and Jelal. Therefore it should be noted that the other, or the reflection, is always preferred. In the case of the mirror contest, it is the copy of the copy. Pamuk blurs the It is true that BB is a two-part book made up of both Jelal’s columns and Galip’s texts reflecting each other endlessly. When the contrastive relation between mirror and painting is remembered, the same problematic can be observed in the Galip and Jelal relationship. Jelal is the writer and Galip discovers his true self when he becomes someone else - Jelal. Therefore, Galip is a copy/an imitation of Jelal. However, the reality of Jelal is debatable also. He never appears in the book except at the death scene at the end. He exists only in his columns, which are never explicitly attributed to him. In Galip’s case, Jelal is not a stranger. Galip knows him as a person as well as a writer in his texts. If Galip finds his identity when he becomes Jelal, this does not mean that he is an imitation of Jelal, but instead he explores the potential writer in himself and solves his identity problem by becoming a synthesis of Galip and Jelal. Therefore it should be noted that the other, or the reflection, is always preferred. In the case of the mirror contest, it is the copy of the copy. Pamuk blurs the

In summary, both in Fowles’s and Pamuk’s novels-more frequently in Pamuk’s than in Fowles’s-characters see/watch themselves in mirrors, and all these glances, all these mirrors and entities, like art which act as mirrors, serve as one thing: the search for individual identity. Deep down all these characters go through an inner turmoil in the process of becoming. However, as Pamuk reveals through Stork in MNR:

An artist’s skill depends on carefully attending to the beauty of the present moment, taking everything down to the minutest detail seriously while, at the same time, stepping back from the world, which takes itself too seriously, and as if looking into a mirror, allowing for the distance and eloquence of a jest (MNR, 420/368).

So, just as mirrors reflect characters, fiction/art reflects the real world - the world of the writer/reader - but only to an extent.